Black People : When Did Slavery End?

When Were Blacks Truly Freed From Slavery?

For Juneteenth, The Root investigates the blurred line of emancipation in America.

• By: Hillary Crosley|Posted: June 15, 2012 at 12:22 AM

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(The Root) -- Though President Abraham Lincoln ended slavery with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, slaves in Texas had no knowledge of their freedom until two and a half years later. On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston and declared the end of the Civil War, with General Granger reading aloud a special decree that ordered the freeing of some 200,000 slaves in the state.
Because of the delay, many African Americans started a tradition of celebrating the actual day slavery ended on June 19 (also known as Juneteenth). But for some, their cheers were short-lived. Thanks to the South's lucrative prison labor system and a deceptive practice called debt peonage, a kind of neo-slavery continued for some blacks long into the 1940s. The question then arises: When did African Americans really claim their freedom?
Chattel slavery in the classic sense ended with the Civil War's close and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Reconstruction followed, creating new opportunities for African Americans who owned and profited from their own land and dug into local politics.
"It's important not to skip over the first part of true freedom," says Douglas Blackmon, author of Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War ll and co-executive producer of the eponymous documentary film. "Public education as we know it today and the first property rights for women were instituted by African-American elected officials."

That should read "Are blacks truly free from Slavery"

With the statistics of high unemployment, ramped discrimination for housing, high prison rates, the disparaging health statistics and the fact that we still hold less than 1 half of 1% of the countrys wealth (just up a fraction) from the days of actual bondage believe it or not. I am hard pressed to believe that we are "free"

peace



Your post is a direct reflection of my first thought when i saw the title of this thread which was that it should read: When did a 'new' type of slavery begin.

I had actually saw the title of this article first thing this morning on MSN and decided to ignore it.

Yea and notice how they like to romanticize with this stuff?? They will never come out and address these ongoing issues, to do that would be admission of guilt, conspiracy and about 1million other things I can think of. I just hate when white network media reflects on anything to do with slavery...the **** just gets so out of context and irrelevant to true issues, they completely ignore its connection to the present realities. I just want em to shut up about it because all they do is romanticize..

Under 'Jim Crow' a wm could/would walk up with a gun. Say you owed money. You would be "arrested and sentenced anywhere from 2-6 years hard labor. If you were on a chain gang, you were lucky. Because since they had no financial investment in you, they didnt care if you lived or died. Over a third did. This practice didnt end en masse until the 40s. It didnt end on a small scale until the 60s





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